courtney-hedger-336844-unsplash

4 Key Practices To Open Your Heart

by Nicole's Blog

What does it mean to open your heart?

Today, I’ll explore four key practices that help you open your heart and live a more heart-centered existence.

One of the most powerful teachings I’ve ever received around heart energy comes from the name of the heart chakra, Anahata. This Sanskrit name roughly translates to – the sound that two things make WITHOUT striking.  In other words, it means union or NO resistance.

Take a deep breath in. Exhale your resistance…aaahhhh! Feel that relaxation around your heart?

Living and being in heart-centered consciousness is to drop your resistance and to operate from a place of love and compassion. It’s to relax around your heart. Healthy heart energy is for connection, communion and collaboration.

When your heart is depleted of energy you may feel tight around your heart or even empty. You may experience feelings like grief, sadness, and pain. This could mutate as well into the umbrella emotion of anger. You may close off your heart and feel  isolation and start to compare and compete for love.

This is when the Ego and Mind try to step in and take over. Yikes!

I know when I am in my heart, I feel good.  When I’m not, I don’t. It really can be that simple if we let it be.

Why not follow the trail of feeling good?

Through my life what I have found to be the most powerful tools for opening and freeing my own heart energy are mindfulness meditation, yogic breathing, gratitude and forgiveness.

[divider style=”dotted” height=”60px” ]

1. Mindfulness Meditation

The practice of slowing down through mindfulness meditation is powerful.  You are not living in your heart if you are constantly in your head and not in your body.  If you take your attention and focus away from the external world you can learn how to focus on your internal landscape, free of others projections, influences and energies.

With meditation you are able listen to what is taking you away from your own body, emotions, energy and experience.   To be connected to your heart you need to connect with your subtle body energies, or parts of your system that are unseen.  In this way you can become a better feeler, sensor and intuit for your own desires and needs.

This also frees you to connect with your Higher Self, Source and the Universe for the most Authentic Love Relationship you will ever find. Your relationship with YOU.

[divider style=”dotted” height=”60px” ]

2. Yoga and Yogic Breathing

Yoga and yogic breathing is an incredible tool for relaxation and mindfulness.  It is said that most people only breath to 30% of their capacity in a day, starving their body, brain and cells of oxygen.  This is not helping the body-mind system heal, but hindering it and creating more resistance.  Remember, we are looking for NO resistance so we can have our energy flowing.  When we slow down and relax, we can use the breath to release toxins, emotions and anything that is creating tension which blocks the flow of our energy and creates illness.

[divider style=”dotted” height=”60px”]

3. Gratitude

Living an ‘attitude of gratitude’ brings so much heart and joy to your life experience.  When you are practicing what you are grateful for there is no room for negativity – your heart is filled with Love.  In that life expanding energy, you attract more life expanding energy like prosperity, abundance and soul nourishment.

The Dr. Emoto water research projects brought so much light to this.  When he used positive words and blessing vibrations over water, the crystalline structure of the water harmonized to create sacred geometry.  When the water was sent negative energy and vibration it became dissonant, fragmented and chaotic.

It’s up to you to bring your vibration into alignment with love and your heart.

[divider style=”dotted” height=”60px” ]

4. Forgiveness

The antidote to grief, sadness and isolation is to forgive, or ‘give forth’ the energy that you are holding onto from the past that created your suffering and pain.  If the heart is union, then you want to offer your heart’s energy of union to your experience of separation.  You can do this through the power of recognizing that what happened was for the greatest good. The universe always leads with what’s best for your soul’s evolution.The life lesson you received is bringing you back home to your heart.

Deepak Chopra had a phrase that always stuck with me in a meditation of his, “Forgiveness is for me, Forgiveness sets me free.”  Set yourself free of your pain by offering yourself love and compassion.

Opening your heart is an ongoing practice of relaxation, releasing resistance and honoring your own healing path.  Every day you have a choice to live more fully in your heart or to create more separation.  If you want to feel good more of the time, it can be as simple as starting to practice one of these self-love tools.

[divider style=”dotted” height=”60px” ]

May you feel peace and union in your heart today.

To receive meditations, affirmations and other inspirational tools for self-care and self-love, click this link and enter your email address!

xo Nicole

photo credit: courtney-hedger @unsplash

rabbit hole

From Chaos to Order

by Nicole's Blog

Are you feeling a bit squeezed? Like your in a race with time? Or being spun in a washing machine? Do you feel resistance? Are you witnessing death/illness/unrest? Are things dismantling?

Change is Now. Restructuring is upon us.

To re-count an older blog I wrote, we are in the year of infinity and change is definitely upon us.  It’s about BELIEVING, KNOWING, getting comfortable with UNCERTAINTY and TRUST. It’s ACTIVATION time light workers!

The New Earth and New Thinking is to set off your desires (and really let ’em rip), Surrender and Believe. Know that the Universe is working with you for the Highest Good of You and for all of humanity. Any challenges that come your way are gifts to help you come more fully into alignment with your Higher Self.

When you practice this New Thinking and really Believe, you will be absolutely amazed at what appears! One of the main obstacles that you need to watch is the Ego. When you actually receive these Blessings, watch your Ego struggle and create Chaos in its disbelief!  “Deal with the enemy in your household (mind)” as Agape’s Rev. Michael Beckwith describes in this video here.

This is what is happening right now in the World. Chaos. From Chaos we find Order. Destruction and restructuring is happening around the entire planet.

Jump on board and live your dreams!! The time is NOW. The Universe and momentum is supporting radical shifting and now is the time to make meaningful shifts. The crystal children are coming in at rapid rates.  They are the race of healers and telepathic beings that will help support the New Earth and its New Thinking!

THE GOOD NEWS IS... there is help if you aren’t feeling supported or are not sure what to do.  Recently, I finished with a coaching client and this is her account of the power LIFE COACHING.

“I came to Nicole at a time when I was spinning my wheels. I’d made some big changes in my life which unexpectedly brought on anxiety and confusion, rather than the predicted increase in day-to-day happiness. Working with Nicole, we teased out what truly fulfills me and brings me joy and peace. 
Not only that, she helped me make small changes and complete short exercises each week that ensured my anxiety decreased and I was making progress toward uncovering my truest of dreams.  The weekly exercises are life long tools that I will not only continue to use, but also treasure.
Most importantly, Nicole helped me to come up with an attainable plan to get me out of my current situation and doing what I love.  All in all, I’m blown away by how much and how quickly Nicole was able to help me. The best part is she taught me how to better serve myself and my dreams for the future.
 If you have any inkling to try this, do it!  This is one of the best things I’ve done for myself. Nicole is gifted not only in her ability to heal and nurture, but to make things happen.  When I look back on the past 6 months, I view coaching with Nicole as the catalyst that re-united me with my purpose. Powerful stuff if I do say so myself! ” 
~Michelle C., Executive & Life Coaching Client
Watch this great video from Deepak Chopra about Chaos and Order from his Rabbit Hole Series!
desire&destiny

21-Day Guided Meditation with Deepak Chopra & Oprah Winfrey

by Nicole's Blog

Desire & Destiny

I’ve been doing this program now for just under the 21 days and it has had a profound effect on my psyche.  I am a very active individual who really doesn’t stop moving, so meditation has always been a challenge for me.  I also know that meditation is exactly what I need.

This meditaiton program has been a huge blessing to help me get through a really tough recent break up.  Instead of letting my emotions and my mind overcome me and create stories of lack, I have been guided to feel my emotions and have compassion for them. I have been able to redirect my energy toward healing myself, creating self-love and seeing this break up as a teacher.

These guided meditations utilize positive affirmations and mantra to guide the mind toward encouraging thoughts.  I know without this meditaiton entering my life exactly when it needed to, my mind could have spun out of control into a very negative, less-than affirming state. Yet now,  I feel stronger and more in love with myself than ever.

This quick and transformational experience reminds me that I am right where I need to be and that I’m fulfilling my desires and destiny as I write this. I’m very radiantly expressing my dharma and thus all that’s occurred is in alignment.

Thank Universe for providing this path!  Thank you Nicole for listening to your inner guidance!

Hopefully if you are reading this, this meditation program is still free. 🙂  Even if it’s not, get it. It’s totally worth it!

https://chopracentermeditation.com/

ganesh_1

Overcoming Obstacles – Finding Gratitude Through Deep Stillness

by Nicole's Blog

Whenever we are faced with obstacles on our journey, they are actually amazing opportunities in disguise to create stillness, to go within and to find gratitude for all things.

With every obstacle that arises we have a chance to see the shadowy parts of ourselves that lay hidden beneath the surface.  The fluctuations of the mind, the ego, and external forces create a landmine of distractions that can keep us from going deep within to listen to our soul.  We all know how easy it is, when faced with obstacles to judge and to move outside of our alignment toward self-destructive, punishing behaviors and thoughts of our wrongdoing. Or we can distract ourselves outwardly by socializing, searching for people to rally around our ‘being right’, or help those who are troubled so that we can forget about our own issues.

As described by the ancient philosophies, the truth is that the way to harness our power is to create stillness. 

In stillness we magnify our power by listening to silence. Silence gives us a glimpse of the free, unconditionally loving spirit within. It strengthens our intuition, which is our ability to see the inner world, in contrast to using our eyes to interpret the ever-changing outer world. Creating stillness is what most of us need and what most of us despise.  Stillness can be perceived as uncomfortable, frightful, lazy and lonely.

Let’s not forget that we are spiritual beings living in a human body and not the other way around.  The love for others and ourselves originates from our connection to Source energy.

“You are not a troubled guest on this Earth, you are not an accident amidst other accidents, you were invited from another and greater night than the one from which you have just emerged.” ~David Whyte

In the Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali, (1.14) it is written, “control over the mind’s fluctuations comes from persevering practice and non-attachment”.

These two guiding concepts of Abhyasa (consistent practice) and Vairagya (non-attachment) help us to find meditation. Although they seem like opposites, effort and surrender, they work as compliments to find this peace within. Peace does not come without practice.

For me, the most effective way to design a practice is to create a sacred space right next to my bed. 

This way before I start my day, or before I go to bed, I have no excuse, but to stop at my altar.  I have adorned my altar with many representations of beauty, people, deities, rocks, stones, crystals, scents and elements of nature. I now have a meditation cushion to curb my excuses that it’s just not comfortable.

I also have slowed down significantly to find prayers of gratitude before my daily rituals like eating, yoga, or healing sessions to tap into my Source energy for guidance and love.

If the mind is heavily distracted I learned through the Law of Attraction to acknowledge all of the things that I am grateful for through stream of consciousness. This will turn my attention away from negative thought patterns and will line me up with Source energy. From Source, I can more easily drop into meditation.

For my meditations, especially if I am restless, I turn to wise meditation teachers to steer my silence through their guided meditations. 

Some of my favorite teachers are Deepak Chopra, Rod Stryker, Richard Freeman and Jeddah Mali.

On a final note about those feelings of discomfort, I want to share an analogy that I love from a Shaman I trained with in Peru.

Imagine for the first time you have just stepped onto an airplane.  Bad weather appears outside. The plane gets bumpy and is jolted. Major fear arises. You think are going to die. You reach for the barf bag in the seat in front of you and get sick.  The second time you get on the plane, you feel the jolt and you know what is causing it and the feeling of sickness may have dissipated.  After several plane rides you know the territory and you feel more safe.  Now, you can fall asleep on the plane with no effort. You completely trust and surrender that you are in good hands. 

The next time you sit down, remember that everything that’s new has its obstacles and that’s what provides the biggest growth. Sit with your fear and send it love.

This year has been one of the most challenging years of my life, with the biggest obstacles AND it has also the most expansive on all levels of my being.  Finding my meditation practice has transformed my life.

In pure love, light and joy.  May you find peace this Thanksgiving season and find meditation in all your days to come.

Blessings,

Nicole

Journey to Enlightenment: THE RABBIT HOLE with Deepak Chopra

by Videos

Deepak Chopra explains the seven stages of consciousness and how they lead to enlightenment. Which stage of consciousness have you reached?

THE RABBIT HOLE features explorations of BIG questions: What is death? Who is God? Is life an illusion? Are we alone in the universe? Fall down the rabbit hole as Deepak Chopra provides his intriguing take on some of humanity’s eternal questions.

THE CHOPRA WELL is dedicated to inspiring, fun, and thought-provoking videos about healthy living, wellness, and spirituality. They are anchored by doctor and author Deepak Chopra, as well as family & friends, who aim to provide you with tools for personal and social transformation. They deal with some “serious” topics and themes here, but they definitely don’t take themselves too seriously.